Building the Future in Israel

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A street in Arara, northern Israel.CreditDan Balilty/Associated Press

By Yoav Gallant

Jan. 21, 2016

JERUSALEM — Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv is always bustling. Youngsters, families and tourists fill its shops, cafes and bars. On Jan. 1, this boulevard became the site of another terrorist attack on Israelis. First, two young men were gunned down in a bar; then, as he fled the scene, the terrorist killed a taxi driver. Several others were injured.

A week later, after a long pursuit, the terrorist, an Israeli-Arab citizen named Nashat Melhem, was encircled by security forces in his hide-out in the town of Arara, and was shot dead after he had opened fire at his pursuers. Nashat Melhem’s rampage in Tel Aviv was not his first attempt at terror, as he had a 2007 conviction for assaulting a soldier and trying to seize his gun.

A vast majority of Arara’s residents are law-abiding Israeli citizens, men and women who go about their daily lives peacefully and have nothing to do with terrorism. But not far from Arara, and less than an hour’s drive from Tel Aviv, is the headquarters of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, which is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

In line with other radical Islamists throughout the region, the northern branch of the Islamic Movement’s followers preach an extremist message, seeking to sow discord among Jews, Christians and Muslims. Over the years, the organization, under cover of freedom of speech, began to abuse its democratic privileges by inciting violence. That was why I was among those in the government who led the move to ban it.

Attacks like the one in Tel Aviv threaten the already complex and delicate relationship between Israel’s Jewish population and its Arab minority, a group that accounts for 1.7 million of our more than eight million citizens. At such moments of heightened tension, Israel’s government has clear responsibilities.

First, we must protect our people. Over more than three decades as a combat soldier, I learned that we have no choice but to fight terrorism and cut its branches without hesitation or compromise.

At the same time, we must preserve the rights and freedoms of an open democracy, and maintain the atmosphere of respect and tolerance necessary for a diverse and pluralistic society. This involves the recognition that the fates of our land’s Jewish inhabitants and its Arab ones are deeply intertwined.

The Israeli government and the Arab Israeli leadership share a common responsibility to curb incitement in Israel. That is why I recently invited Ayman Odeh, a member of the Knesset and the leader of the Joint List alliance of Arab parties, to join me in visiting a number of Arab Israeli towns. Together, we examined firsthand the challenges facing Arab Israeli communities so that we could bring about solutions.

That effort has already started. Just two days before the Tel Aviv attack, the Israeli cabinet agreed to allocate an additional $3.8 billion for housing, social welfare, infrastructure, transportation and education in Arab Israeli areas. Particularly in the context of the hard days we’ve just endured, this extra grant represents an important step in the right direction.

At this critical moment, we have to carry out a strategic plan to fight crime and poverty among Israel’s Arab population and build the community’s social and economic institutions. More than ever, this is at the heart of our national interest, and it has to be a top priority for our government.

Housing and construction, which fall under my responsibility as a cabinet minister, are vitally important to improving the socioeconomic status of the Arabs. We are now working to expand the municipal boundaries of Arab towns and cities, frozen for decades, by putting sections of publicly owned land under their jurisdiction.

The Israeli government will build new Arab neighborhoods on this land, with high-quality housing, while leveraging an existing public program to help young Arab couples purchase homes for the first time. As part of this effort, we are planning to build a new state-of-the-art Arab city in Israel’s north; named Jadeidi-Makr, it will be home to 45,000 people.

Jews and Arabs have lived together in our land for many centuries, and will continue to do so for generations to come. It is our duty to accept this reality by nurturing a culture and a country where both peoples can thrive.

We should not forget that, more than a decade before the state of Israel was established, Zeev Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist Zionism and the ideological forefather of Israel’s right-wing Likud Party, recognized that “the political, economic, and cultural welfare of the Arabs will always remain a primary condition of Israel’s well-being.”

Our Declaration of Independence guarantees full equality for all our citizens. Throughout the years, we have been able to preserve a fine balance between security and liberalism, and we must maintain it. This is what makes Israel unique in our region, and it will always remain a great source of pride for us.

When terrorism strikes, we must prevent the outbreak of anti-Arab sentiment in the broader society; it only adds to the Israeli-Arab community’s alienation, and that risks giving legitimacy to the extremists. Israeli Arabs are our citizens; they are not the enemy — and we must not allow anybody to undermine Israel’s character as a Jewish and democratic state.

Extremism and terrorism will not overpower the government’s resolve, which is to ensure the safety of the Israeli public and provide a prosperous future for our Jewish and Arab citizens.

Yoav Gallant, a retired major general in the Israel Defense Forces, is Israel’s minister of housing and construction.